Diamond Stone: the Halo and the Omnibar, replanned

Date: 2026-11-11. Revision 1. Drawn in docs/shell-map.html; screens in docs/ui-shell-mockup.html, section "Halo and Omnibar: arranging and modes".

Everything the Halo and the Omnibar do, the parts they are built from, how a person adds, removes and reorders what is in them, and the problems people will meet with both, each with its answer. It replaces the Omnibar, Halo and Halo drawer parts of docs/DESIGN.md section 7 where they differ, and expands components 85 to 87 of docs/COMPONENTS.md. Movement is in docs/MOTION.md.

What changed from the earlier plan

1. The person can now add, remove and reorder rings. The earlier plan left this out.
2. The band has kept places (the person's) and live places (the system's), so arranging never hides urgent work.
3. Rings have four clear kinds. Before, "what needs me" and "what I watch" were mixed.
4. The Omnibar has nine named modes, including search typed at the bottom of the screen.
5. A decision with two answers shows both. Before, "Send back" was hidden under More.
6. Forty-four problems are listed with their answers (section 9).

Nothing here has been tried on a phone.

1. The two jobs

The rule stays: the top is for looking, the bottom is for doing. Nothing in the Halo is the only way to do something, because the top of the phone is out of the thumb's reach.

2. The Halo: what a ring is

A ring is one thing worth a glance. There are four kinds.

What can be watched. Any record with a life: customer, enquiry, quote, order, shipment, delivery, supplier order, invoice, case, a person. A watched ring shows the record's stage as its segments and changes when the record does.

Levels are unchanged: thin ring (look today), segmented ring (work waiting, one segment per step), solid amber with a clock (a promise or a legal or money deadline about to be missed). Level is shown by shape as well as colour. Only the system sets a level; a person cannot mark their own ring urgent.

3. The band: kept places and live places

At rest the band shows You, then four places on the S25 (five on the wider A55), then +N if there is more.

Rules that make this safe:

• At least one place is always live. However the band is arranged, urgent work has somewhere to appear.
• An amber ring always shows. If every live place is taken, it takes the last one. It cannot be removed or reordered away, only put off with a reason.
• Kept rings needing attention show it where they are. A kept customer with something waiting gains its segments and count in place; it does not also appear as a second ring.
• Live rings do not jump under a finger. Their order is worked out when a screen opens and when the band is pulled down, not while the person is looking at it. A new ring forms in the last live place; an amber one is the exception and arrives at once.
• A ring that is finished leaves by itself. A watched order that is delivered and paid seals with a tick and goes, with "Removed: delivered. Undo" in the Omnibar.

4. Adding, removing and reordering

Every way has a button; none depends on a drag or a long press alone.

Adding

A newly watched ring goes to "Watching" in the pulled-down view. It reaches the band only if the person keeps it in a kept place, or when it needs them.

Removing and quieting

Reordering

In the pulled-down view, Arrange turns each ring into a row with: a grip to drag, up and down buttons, a pin (keep in the band, first to third place), and remove. No jiggling icons. The same screen shows "Hidden" and "Recently removed", and "Reset to my role's arrangement."

• The arrangement is saved to the person's account, per role, and follows them to any phone.
• Only the kept places and the order of "Watching" are the person's. "Needs you" is always in the system's order, so two people looking at the same work see the same priority.
• Up to 12 watched rings. At 13 the oldest untouched one is offered for removal.

What the administrator sets

Under Control → Halo: the starting arrangement for each role; rings required for a role (the accountant's VAT deadline; the owner's approvals), which a person cannot remove or put off beyond a limit; how long and how often work may be put off; who may hand work to whom; and which figures may be shown as shortcuts to which role.

5. The Halo's three positions and what each can do

Also in the Halo:

• The You ring: today's summary; quiet hours; "view as" for people with more than one role; cover (who receives your rings while you are on leave); the surface, motion and "hide amounts" switches.
• Cover. While someone is on approved leave, their "Needs you" rings go to their alternate, marked "for Salim". Nothing waits unseen.
• More than one role. One Halo; rings from every role the person holds, each tagged; a filter in the pulled-down view.
• Back to. After acting on a ring from another screen, a chip returns the person to where they were.
• Age. Without signal the rings show their saved state with its age, counts turn grey, and "All caught up" is never shown.

By kind of user

6. The Omnibar: nine modes

One capsule, always in the same place. Its parts change with what is on screen; the accent button never moves.

When signal is lost the bar keeps working. An action that can wait is done at once and marked "Waiting to send"; one that cannot (money) says so before it is tapped.

The four things at rest

Place. Shows where the person is. Tap for the Places sheet: Home, the role's areas, settings. The count on it is the Halo's "needs you" count, and tapping the count brings the Halo down, so the person never has to reach the top. Press and hold returns to the previous Place.

Add. The few things this role creates, in a fixed order, with the person's own most used three in a first row. It reads the screen: on a customer's record the first item is "Quote for Al Noor". Press and hold opens the person's first item directly.

Scan. One camera that works out what it sees: a label or code opens its record; a document is squared and read; a business card becomes a contact. It reads the screen too: inside a goods receipt, a scanned label ticks that slab. If the camera is refused, the code can be typed.

Search. Finds, in one field: records by name or number; people; settings; and actions ("new quote", "leave"). Before typing it shows recent records. It also answers small sums in place: "3250 usd" shows the amount in rials at today's company rate, and "86 m2 20mm" a weight. Each result offers Open and Watch.

What the person can change in the Omnibar

The bar's four positions are the same for everyone, always. That is what lets a thumb find them without looking. What can change:

7. How the two work together

1. A ring is tapped. The drawer opens: what, who, how much.
2. Its one button is pressed. The drawer closes and the Omnibar is now in Action or Decision mode for that item, with the record behind it.
3. The action is taken with the thumb. Money asks for the fingerprint.
4. The Omnibar shows Result with Undo. The ring's segment fills; if it was the last, the ring seals and leaves.
5. The next thing waiting becomes current, and "Back to" offers the screen the person came from.

Opening a ring to read it changes nothing. Only the Omnibar acts.

8. Parts

Sub-components of components 85 to 87. Each is built and tested alone.

Halo

Omnibar

What the server sends

The Halo is worked out on the server, so every phone and every colleague sees the same thing. For each ring: its kind, what it is about, level, count, steps and which are done, a label, when it was worked out, and what the person may do with it. The phone stores only the arrangement and shows what it is sent. Each module declares its own ring rules in one list ("an approval waiting → a segmented ring for the approver"), so adding a module never means editing the Halo.

9. Problems people will meet, and the answers

Halo

Omnibar

10. Settings

11. What to measure once it is used

How often each kind of ring is opened, put off, handed over or ignored; time from a ring appearing to its action; how many people arrange their Halo at all; how often the Place count is used to bring the Halo down; taps on the main button followed by Undo within three seconds (a sign of accidents). A kind of ring that is ignored most of the time is a fault in the rule, not in the person.

12. Decisions

1. Up to three kept places, at least one live. Proposed.
2. Work can be put off and handed over but never removed. Proposed.
3. The system may suggest watching a record visited three times in a day. Proposed: yes, once.
4. Customers who are traders may arrange watched orders. Proposed: yes.
5. Messages held five seconds before sending. Proposed: yes, with a switch per person.
6. A left-hand switch. Proposed: yes.
7. Still open from before: whether the pull-down is comfortable below the status bar; whether the Place count is enough for reach. Both need the phones.

Customers (changed 11 November 2026)

Section 5's table gave customers a short Halo. By the owner's request the client portal now takes the public website's look, and the customer's rings become one line of words with counts (docs/SITE-DESIGN.md section 13). The Halo and Omnibar remain for staff, drivers and logistics companies. Trader customers still choose which orders to watch; they appear in that line.

After the critique (12 November 2026)

From docs/CRITIQUE.md sections 2 and 4. Where these differ from the text above, these win.